Those who do not follow Balkan politics will not grasp the full scope of this story.

It is two foreign govts covertly channeling $ to Trump in exchange for his (2nd) admin's support for potentially the wholesale redrawing of the map the southeast Europe.

I'll explain.

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1768720718349349010

First, recall Serb nationalists were from onset of Trump's 1st campaign all in on him. Like the Russians, they saw in Trump both a kindred ideological spirit but also a categorical transactionalist who was willing to put all of US foreign policy on sale. balkaninsight.com/2016/11/11/ser…

Over the past few mos I've repeatedly commented on Bosnia & Herzegovina's ability to provide critically needed 155mm shells, & other munitions, for Ukraine. There is a great opportunity here for the West to shift the tide of battle vs. Russia. Let me explain the details. 🧵 BiH's remarkably robust defense industry dates to the Yugoslav period. On the eve of the SFRJ's dissolution (1990/91), BiH was by some estimates producing cc 51% of all arms & munitions in Yugoslavia, which then had the 4th largest armed forces in Europe (the JNA).

As Bosnian Serb extremist Dodik again insists he intends to take the RS entity out BiH (while still somehow magically respecting the Dayton Agreement) a familiar, bad faith chorus has struck up: why can Kosovo secede from Serbia but the RS not from BiH?

WARNING: VERY LONG 🧵 Let's define our terms: "can" in international relations is a Q of power, not international law (i.e. the is/ought problem, in short). The US & China can do a lot of things bc they are super powers; Burkina Faso & Honduras cannot bc they are small, poor, & weak.

Bosnian Serb extremist Dodik makes some of his clearest threats of secessionist yet, saying if @OHR_BiH imposes new state property law "at 5, at 11 we declare independence." A few things worth unpacking here as they involve both BiH & EU dynamics. 🧵klix.ba/vijesti/bih/ot… Dodik's hysterics confirm what I wrote about yesterday: @OHR_BiH is preparing a new state property law, and his threats clearly suggest he's looking for a still better division of spoils than what may nominally be on the table. Schmidt will concede if so.

https://x.com/JasminMuj/status/1740064850859151410?s=20

Deeply alarming revelation from the U.S. concerning a significant arms buildup by Serbia along the Kosovo border. It is vital now that the Biden admin not double-back on the clarity w/ which it appears finally to be seeing Vucic. He is a threat to be countered, not appeased.

https://twitter.com/nickschifrin/status/1707829378510409729

As someone who was optimistic about Biden in 2020 & what I anticipated his regional policies to be, to deep disillusionment w/ his admin's actual approach to the WB, this is a much improved, realistic tone from the NSC. More needed, as per my txt below.x.com/JasminMuj/stat…

While we still puzzle out the exact facts of the Serb nationalist paramilitary attack in Kosovo, it's worth recalling that the Serbian security apparatus has been using proxy & criminal groups to initiate violence since the 90s, the original plans for which date to the 80s.🧵 The clearest articulation of this strategy was the RAM Plan (aka Rampart-91) developed by the Belgrade's military & intel leadership, under Milosevic's direction, which envisioned a scheme for distributing arms & seizing territories in Croatia & Bosnia via local proxies.

Let me explain explicitly why yesterday's attack by Serb nationalist militants in Kosovo must lead to a categorical reorganization of the EU and US posture towards Serbia. Especially for those who do not follow W. Balkans politics. 🧵 First, there are two primary theories for how the attack happened: i. it was a rogue grp of local militants & criminals who decided to take up arms vs. the Kosovo state; ii. it was an operation by Serbian state security working (in)directly on the orders of the Belgrade regime.

No Q the U.S. has, historically, undertaken the most credible steps twd constitutional reform in BiH. But U.S. is also the architect of the Dayton constitution & as recently as Oct 2022 & April 2023 explicitly supported (FBiH) constitutional changes by the @OHR_BiH which… …deepened the sectarian discrimination now almost entirely dismantled by the ECHR. And all signs point to the Court explicitly striking down the @OHR_BiH’s U.S. backed impositions before the yr’s end too.

America’s actual friends warned this admin not to pursue this course.

I'd like to offer some thoughts on the @ECHR_CEDH's historic Kovacevic ruling re: BiH today & attempt to explain why it is so significant for the future of all liberal-democratic reform processes in the country. Please note, however, this is no way an exhaustive analysis. 🧵 The ruling is necessarily lengthy, but the most relevant passages come in "The Court's assessment" section & focus primarily on the constitutional modalities of the BiH House of Peoples (i.e. the upper chamber of the state parliament) & the state presidency.

Thx to @IstragaB we’ve learnt tonight that the European Crt of Human Rights has again ruled vs. the BiH state, i.e. the Dayton Constitution, & directly challenged the “ethnicity-territory matrix” at the center of the entire Dayton regime in its forthcoming Kovačević decision. 🧵 The legal weight of what the ECHR appears to have decided is enormous: this decision is far more far reaching than any of its preceding rulings, each of which significantly undermined the legal foundations of the Dayton regime in their own right, tho they remain unimplemented.

I want to offer a (non-exhaustive) account of what I understand to have happened in the “pro-Bosnian” parliamentary scene over the past few years & how it relates to the country’s present crisis, & the international community’s role in the same.

Warning: this will be niche. 🧵 It is difficult to date the origins of this “moment” exactly but it is localized largely to the State Dept somewhere in the transition btw Obama/Trump admins. By 2017-18 there was a recognition that the situation in BiH had become untenable & unstable; a serious reset was needed.

Some quick thoughts after 2 days of meetings in Brussels.

There is widespread recognition that the political situation in the W. Balkans has significantly deteriorated. Ironically, the (re)invasion of Ukraine has exacerbated the worst impulses of both EU & U.S. twd the region. Both the Commission and the Biden admin have doubled down on the politics of appeasement & accommodation w/ local nationalist-authoritarian elements — especially those known to be close to Moscow. This too is widely recognized in Brussels.

Many ldrs in W. Balkans have articulated credible grievances vs. the West. Kurti has articulated a credible grievance - US/EU appeasement of Vucic, Kosovo as hostage to broken diplomatic status quo - and acted to shore up Kosovo’s sovereign interests as a remedy. Difference. 🧵 Most criticisms of Kurti have missed the mark; they fundamentally misunderstand the nature of his project. They’re critiquing him for imperiling a (non-existent) Euro-Atlantic process in Kosovo but he’s arguing membership reqs Prishtina to have full, genuine sovereignty first.

I want to make explicit why the events in Kosovo & the Biden admin's reactions are so worrying, especially for the security & sovereignty of the Bosnian state. So, let me present you with a sadly plausible scenario & you decide what this WH would likely do. 🧵 Here's the scenario: Dodik decides for any number of possible reasons he's going to really test the waters on de facto RS secession. Why he would do so is irrelevant; he's flirted for yrs w/ various justifications & has militarized his police in preparation.

U.S. has ejected Kosovo Defender 23 NATO exercises and appears to be freezing its diplomatic efforts on behalf Pristina in international institutions. A major diplomatic rupture now w/ Kosovo but zero consequences for Vucic orchestrating attacks on KFOR. evropaelire.org/a/shba-pasojat… This is a far more severe reaction than Vucic has ever suffered for any of his antics in Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia or Montenegro. The Biden admin is categorically committed to his regime, clearly, and will punish any other regional govt that tries to oppose his proxy machinations.

Tho couched as a critique of Dodik’s secessionist efforts, today’s U.S. Embassy Sarajevo statement in makes clear the Biden admin’s plan for BiH state properties law is one that will (in)directly transfer millions in real estate to Dodik, clearing path for OHR closure. As a few of us have warned, it’s obvious what the Biden admin’s vision for BiH is: appeasement of Covic (elxn law) & Dodik (state properties), closure of OHR, w/ security “guarantees” to be provided by Zagreb & Belgrade & a fig-leaf EU enlargement process. Delusional, yes.

With the new FBiH govt in Sarajevo finally installed by a narrow margin & two rounds of intervention by the @OHR_BiH, fully 208 days after elxn day, I think it's important we attempt some kind of autopsy of the events that led to this bizarre day. 🧵klix.ba/vijesti/bih/pr… I'll take it as read that this govt was, fundamentally, agreed btw Washington & Zagreb & installed via the @OHR_BiH. That pact has been obvious since (at least) 2021 & the brazen illiberal engineering required to realize it is now painfully obvious. newlinesmag.com/argument/in-th…

Surreal scenes in Sarajevo as FBiH govt established via @OHR_BiH fiat is voted in by slimmest majority, as assembly building is surrounded by crowds of protestors in opposition to Schmidt’s putschist schemes. A Belarusian scenario in an EU candidate state. klix.ba/clanak/2304281… German SPD MP Adis Ahmetovic has released a scathing letter in response to the @OHR_BiH but also implicitly the MLAs who’ve voted in this new govt. He clearly gestures at the harm done to legitimacy of BiH’s democratic processes by such illiberal, putschist antics.

Let's discuss some of the major aspects of these new constitutional changes by Schmidt. The essence of the decision is overtly partisan: @OHR_BiH is imposing an ad hoc allowance for the Bosniak VP to be circumvented for the exclusive purpose of the securing the HDZ-Troika govt.🧵

https://twitter.com/JasminMuj/status/1651621733118644224

Article 1 of the decision is thus pure partisan make-believe; an assertion of might over right and potentially also an avenue for future legal challenges but I doubt that will follow because clearly the BiH Constitutional Court also has an HDZ majority.

N1 reports @OHR_BiH will impose its next round of illiberal gerrymandering of the FBiH govt formation process by the end of the day w/ legally & constitutionally dubious “ad hoc” intervention, obviously w/ exclusive aim of cementing @Dragan_Covic in govt. n1info.ba/posts/n1-sazna… Ad hoc means whatever @OHR_BiH does will only apply to current govt formation process & will not apply to future rounds bc the aim is to allow HDZ-led coalition to form govt but not allow same principle to be used in future to ejected @Dragan_Covic from govt. Illiberalism 101.

It’s come to my attention that Russian state media asset & Serb nationalist propagandist Malagurski screened his new revisionist film on the Bosnian Genocide at the St. Petka's Serbian Orthodox Church in San Marcos, CA on March 23. The church’s FB page alone speaks volumes. Here is the director himself in the church’s auditorium. The curtain behind him obscures him two large portraits of Nazi-collaborators and ultranationalist (Chetnik) leaders Draza Mihailovic and Momcilo Djujic. Djujic is also prominently valorized on their FB page.